Transcript

Well last weekend in Sydney there was a most interesting court hearing. The highest tribunal of the Anglican Church in Australia, the appellate tribunal, sat to consider the question of whether there is anything in the Constitution of the Anglican Church that would disqualify women from becoming bishops.

The appellate tribunal is made up of 3 bishops, and 4 senior lawyers, and its decision is pending. The case was brought by a group supporting women bishops who are members of the General Synod of the Anglican Church. They were supported by the diocese of Canberra-Goulburn and opposed by the diocese of Sydney.

Dr Muriel Porter is the informal leader of the group who brought the question, and I asked her to explain what precisely they were seeking clarification about.

Muriel Porter: It comes down to what is meant by a definition in the constitution that defines what is the basic legal requirement for a bishop. What are the basic, absolute qualifications that are required in law? And the definition in the Constitution says that to be a bishop a person - a person - needs to be baptised, aged at least 30 and ordained a priest. And the person question there is some reference was made in the hearing that was held on Saturday with the tribunal, where the question was 'Well person need not necessarily mean both male and female in this context'.

Stephen Crittenden: In other words, in this case the people opposing women bishops would be arguing that there's an implied maleness in the word 'person'.

Muriel Porter: In that particular definition. Not when the Constitution talks about 'person' when it's about who may be baptised for instance, and the word 'person' crops up many times in the Constitution. But the implication was that the word 'person' in that context in that place, implied maleness.

Stephen Crittenden: And how old is this definition in this Constitution, Muriel?

Muriel Porter: Oh, only brought in by an amendment to General Synod in 1989. It's a very complicated Constitution this one, Stephen, it had to then pass all the major diocese, the five major capital city dioceses and up to three-quarters of the dioceses in all. It took till 1995 before it was actually able to be formally put in place, because the Diocese of Sydney held out resolutely for many years, because the then Archbishop, Donald Robinson, was very concerned that by allowing this clarified definition of what it took to be a bishop, it would in fact allow women to be bishops.

Stephen Crittenden: Ah, so he was concerned many years ago that there was a little unexploded bomb in that definition?

Muriel Porter: I think that might be one way of putting it. I haven't discussed it with him, I've only seen the documents involved in Sydney not wishing to pass that, and without Sydney's approval of course, that definition could not have become part of the Constitution, because all the five metropolitan dioceses, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, so forth, Perth, have to agree to those sorts of amendments to the Constitution. So it was after Donald Robinson retired and Harry Goodhew became Archbishop of Sydney, that he then approved that definition being put in place. And they put a rider on it, that said there's nothing in this that says that this Synod's going to want to have women priests etc. So I think it was pretty clear exactly what was involved.

Stephen Crittenden: Muriel, doesn't it follow that if you're willing to have women as priests, there isn't any inherent disqualification to those women going on to become bishops. I mean compared with becoming a priest, isn't becoming a bishop more a bureaucratic thing?

Muriel Porter: Well I wouldn't go so far as to call it a bureaucratic appointment, though of course in the Church of England, from which the Anglican Church of Australia is derived, bishops were crown appointments, and still are in fact, they still are crown appointments technically, though there are committees that assist Her Majesty. The Prime Minister I think these days has the final say. But they are crown appointments, and they are sort of a form of public office which is why in the Church of England they've never really until very recent times, had clear direct definitions of what it took to be a bishop. And it's interesting the Church of England has in fact moved to put in its definition of what it takes to be a bishop, an actual bar to women, which was not in existence and has not been in existence in the definition we have in our Constitution here.

Stephen Crittenden: Just tell us about the appellate tribunal. It's the highest court in the Anglican Church in Australia.

Muriel Porter: Highest court, yes. It's the court that hears these cases about interpreting the Constitution, what's allowable, or possible.

Stephen Crittenden: I understand that there was a move to have one of the three bishop, the Archbishop of Perth, Roger Herft, disqualify himself from hearing this case, on the grounds that he'd made strong pro-women statements publicly in the past.

Muriel Porter: Yes, the Sydney party did ask him to disqualify himself, or be disqualified. The policy of the tribunal is that members disqualify themselves if necessary, not the tribunal itself. Yes, the grounds were that he has made strong pro-women bishops statements, but also that he has made comments about Sydney diocese's views on women that they felt showed an actual bias against them on his behalf. Legal debate ensued and the Archbishop I believe, I haven't spoken to him about this, but I believe from what he said at the beginning of the tribunal, that he has himself taken legal advice and on the basis of that and on his belief that he certainly did not bear bias against the diocese of Sydney, that he declined to disqualify himself.

Stephen Crittenden: Muriel, some people might say the avenue you've chosen is a bit like going to the High Court to get the law changed, rather than going to the parliament. Why not try to get General Synod to make some kind of ruling?

Muriel Porter: Look Stephen, that's certainly one way we had been tackling, but you see what's very important about this case is that definition of itself. If it actually has some sort of hidden, unstated inherited bar to women as bishops. If that is true in the case, then any canon the General Synod might pass to allow women to be bishops -

Stephen Crittenden: Isn't worth a bean.

Muriel Porter: Well no, it would be ruled invalid I would think. So you see that knowing whether that definition of the canonical definition of the fitness of a person to be a bishop, if that word 'person' in that context actually means men only, then no canon of General Synod for women bishops will overcome it. So if that is the case, if the tribunal finds that is the case, Stephen, we've then got to go through the - I would believe, I'm no lawyer, but this is my reading of it - we would then have to go back to another amendment to the Constitution. Now you and I won't live to see that happen, Stephen, because it certainly is that -

Stephen Crittenden: These things are painfully slow, aren't they?

Muriel Porter: Well not only painfully slow, but the diocese of Sydney would make sure it didn't pass one that -

Stephen Crittenden: Yes, now this is the other thing about the General Synod, isn't it, the people who are in favour of women bishops don't have the numbers on General Synod, and in fact is it not the case that the weight of numbers that the Sydney Anglicans hold is actually tilting further and further in their direction as time goes by?

Muriel Porter: Yes, that's certainly very true. The General Synod is made up of representatives of the 23 Anglican dioceses in this country and their representation is based on their numbers of clergy, that's the simple rule. So if you have X number of clergy, then you have Y number of representatives to the General Synod.

Stephen Crittenden: In other words, Muriel, the faster that Moore College churns them out, the more automatically it is immediately affecting the number of clergy.

Muriel Porter: The faster they send them out and that they are ordained. I mean the fact is you see, Sydney's now introduced, talk about sleepers, they have introduced what is called a permanent deaconate, where a lot of people who are already employed in the diocese as music ministers, or youth workers or whatever, are actually now able to be ordained as deacons. Deacon, in terms of the General Synod, is the same as priest in the number of people you can have representing you in General Synod. So there's the potential for Sydney to have an overwhelming number almost, of representatives at General Synod in the next decade.

Stephen Crittenden: And they don't have to be priests in parishes, as it were?

Muriel Porter: No. So you see, Sydney could theoretically totally overwhelm the General Synod, and that would of course be totally against the spirit of the constitution. I would say that the pro-women forces still certainly have a majority in General Synod, but to get any of these canons through General Synod on any of these matters, you have to have a two-thirds majority among the clergy, among the laity, among the bishops, and then you've got to talk about it effectively for three years, and come back and get the two thirds again.

Stephen Crittenden: Dr Muriel Porter.

Well that's all this week. Before we go, you may remember our program a couple of weeks ago when I spoke to Lenny Brenner, the author of 'Zionism in the Age of the Dictators'. We've received many letters and emails, which we're reading, taking issue with Mr Brenner's comments, and we'll be returning to the subject soon with other viewpoints.

Thanks this week to Noel Debien and John Diamond. Goodbye now from Stephen Crittenden.

Guests

Dr Muriel Porter

Credits

Presenter

Stephen Crittenden

Producer

Noel Debien

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